MYOB general manager - enterprise division and connected services, Andrew Birch told Accountants Daily than the balance between three key areas of accountants work is shifting.

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“When we're talking to accountants we're really seeing a change in their industry with the movement to the cloud and we can break that into three areas,” Mr Birch said.

“Transaction processing is the first area, compliance is the second area and advisory is the third area.”

According to Mr Birch the first two areas, transaction processing and compliance, are decreasing while the third area, advisory, is increasing.

“Transaction processing is becoming much more efficient because of accountants being able to use the same software ledgers with their clients because of the cloud and that's becoming much, much more efficient and in fact reducing the work that accountants have to do in that area,” Mr Birch explained.

“Because of the automation that technology's bringing to that area between accountants and their SME clients, that transaction processing work will reduce substantially over the coming years.”

In the compliance area of work the same thing is happening according to Mr Birch.

“Accountants have been in compliance for a long time but because of this automation in the industry we've seen compliance work load reducing 15 per cent over the last few years and so it's not a growth area of work for accountants because of the automation that's actually reducing their workload in that area as well,” he said.

“Accounting firms need to keep moving with the industry here so they stay quite efficient around that.”

However it’s not all on a downward spiral according to Mr Birch.

“The good news is, in the advisory area, the third area, that's increasing. The advisory work is increasing and that's increased about 40 per cent over recent years and we expect that to grow,” he said.

“It’s really the area that accountants are looking to grow their businesses and do more with their clients than they've done in the past because they can.”